


Broken Souls

by squirenonny



Series: Voltron Soulmate AUs [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Depersonalization, Derealization, Dissociation, Existential Crisis, Hurt/Comfort, Kuron is Shiro (Voltron)'s Clone, Lots of speculation about Operation Kuron and Lotor & the rift, M/M, Mostly canon compliant except for the obvious, Planotic soulmates share scars and pain, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Romantic soulmates can communicate via writing, Ryou and Lotor are good boys just trying to figure shit out okay?, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, let them have this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-05 09:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14615145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squirenonny/pseuds/squirenonny
Summary: When Shiro escapes the Galra for the second time, everything is wrong. His bonds with Matt and Keith no longer work, and the new bonds that develop only drive a wedge into the team. He begins to wonder if he's broken, or if he even exists at all.A spiritual sequel to Love and Other Questions that picks up in the middle of season 3 with Kuron/Ryou's introduction. Ryou- and Lotor-centric. A series of snapshots covering seasons 3-5 and beyond.[On indefinite hiatus as of season 6]





	1. Ryou

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phoenixyfriend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/gifts).



> Blame phoenixyfriend for this.
> 
> There will probably be three chapters in total, but really, who knows? I didn't expect this to end up longer than about 2k and welp. Here we are.
> 
> For those of you who haven't read my other Soulmate AU, Love and Other Questions, this is kind of an AU sequel to that? Same soulmate AU--romantic soulmates or "pen pals" write to each other; platonic soulmates or "pain pals" share pain/scars. The background ships, both romantic and platonic are all the same as that--relevant to this story: Shatt, Klance, platonic Keith & Shiro, platonic Keith & Pidge, platonic Lance & everyone (it's complicated.) You don't have to have read LAOQ to understand this story, since that fic is AU as of season 3 and this one doesn't even start until the middle of s3, but if you have read it, the relationships are consistent between fics, even if the plot is not.
> 
> Enjoy!

At first, he doesn't think about it.

At first, he doesn't think about much of anything. Not about where he is, or why, or how long he's been there. He doesn't think about his team, what they're doing without him. He doesn't think about what new memories he might have lost.

All he thinks about is survival.

* * *

It's nearly a full day before he comes down off his adrenaline high, his desperation, his animalistic prowl, and starts to think again. He's found some meager shelter for the night, on this cold, dismal little planet he's stranded himself on, and he's built a fire.

The wound in his leg reopened at some point; he doesn't know when. But he knows that it's bleeding again, and he's lost too much blood already. He knows he hasn't found food yet and the painful ridges of his ribs beneath his prison uniform tell him he hasn't eaten in a while. Probably they kept him alive on some kind of nutrient solution, or by keeping him halfway in stasis whenever they weren't poking and prodding at him and talking about--

The sharp stab of pain halts that line of thought, as does the sudden swirl of vertigo that follows. He's not sure if that's the blood loss or the hunger or the horror at what he knows he has to do. He activates his hand and stares at it for a long moment.

Then his eyes drift to the other arm, to the little red mark on the back of his wrist. Hoverbike accident. He still remembers it like it was yesterday; somehow all his time in Galra hands hasn't stripped this memory away from him. He'd taken Keith out to the desert to fly, and something about the smile on Keith's face, the laughter he'd seen too seldom from the teen, stripped away the pull of regulation and responsibility. They stayed out past curfew, until Keith was falling asleep behind the controls and neither of them could see the canyons around them.

He's still not sure if it was a rock or a tree or just a freak accident, but the bike suddenly pitched sideways beneath him, spilling both its riders into the dry riverbed. Keith cried out in pain, quickly stifled, as he clutched his arm to his chest.

(It wasn't broken, but it hurt like hell, and they'd been new enough to the whole soulmates thing that Keith had persisted in lying about the severity of his injury for the entire trip back to the Garrison, right up to the door to the infirmary, where Shiro finally pulled back his sleeve and held up his wrist for Keith to see the angry red badge across his skin, a mirror of Keith's own gash. He went quietly after that.)

Well, it's not like he hasn't been hurting all day, he thinks. He doesn't know what happened; his recapture is a complete blank in his memory. He doesn't know if the others assumed him dead, or if they've been looking for him. He doesn't remember hurting in the long, patchy fog of his imprisonment, but he supposes that doesn't mean he _didn't_. He has no clue how long he's been gone, even.

Keith deserves better than having him for a soulmate, with as often as he gets maimed. Maybe he should just... wait. Let himself bleed out. It won't be entirely without pain, but he figures it's a merciful way to go, comparatively speaking.

But Keith never resented the pain. He hated what it meant, he hated that Shiro had suffered all that and more. But Keith told him, time and time again when he sat beside Shiro after a flashback and the guilt became too much to contain--when Shiro tried to apologize for making Keith go through all the torture, making him live with the things Shiro had blocked out.

"It's not fair to you," Shiro said. "I got captured, but you're the one who had to cope with it all. I don't even remember the pain."

Keith stared at him, bewildered. "It isn't a competition, Shiro. You went through hell, and okay, sure, I felt some of it. But that kind of pain goes away. It hurt, and then it was over with, and I got to hold on to knowing you weren't dead yet. It's--I don't _want_ you to hurt. But if it's a choice between hurting for a while and losing you forever, for me, there's no contest. I'll take whatever pain I need to as long as it means I get to see you again."

Shiro's stomach turns as he looks back at the weeping wound on his leg, and he hesitates again, knowing this will probably all be for nothing in the end. He'll just die of infection instead of blood loss, and Keith will feel it all the while.

But he has to take the chance. Keith will understand.

With one last breath to steel himself, Shiro presses his hand to the wound, his screams echoing back to him through the night.

* * *

He has the Marks.

He doesn't know why that seems so important to him, that he still has the Marks he's had all his life. Keith's scars. Matt's Mark on his wrist, mocking him. He's wondered, all this time, whether Matt hasn't replied because he's dead. Now he thinks maybe it's just that the universe is big and cruel and callous and wherever Matt is, whether he's still sitting in prison or whether he escaped already--maybe he just doesn't have a pen to write with.

He'd give anything for a pen right now, even if Matt isn't in a position to come save him.

He doesn't want to be alone.

He's dying. He knows that. He's stuck in the cockpit of a fighter that's slowly running out of fuel, that didn't have food in the first place except two ration bars the rebels reluctantly gave to him as he left. The water's gone now, too, and the oxygen level drops a little more with each passing hour. His leg's infected, he's pretty sure. It hurts like hell, but he keeps forgetting the pain as the dizziness sweeps through.

Nothing feels real anymore. Maybe that's why the Marks matter so much. They're something real. He thinks they are. Even though he hasn't felt anything from Keith in a week and he hasn't heard from Matt in a year and in the dim, dying light of the cockpit the colors seem duller than they ever were before.

He pulls up the ship's log to record one last entry, too tired and dehydrated for tears as he apologizes to Keith. He made him suffer all this pain, and they won't even see each other again before the end.

* * *

They did something to him.

He doesn't know what. None of them know what. Pidge keeps saying it shouldn't be possible. Nothing in the universe can break soulbonds. Lance laughs at that, for some reason, but Allura agrees with Pidge. Not even Haggar's own magic can touch the threads that connect souls.

And yet.

Keith figures it out before Shiro, of course. The haze of reunion wipes away the fears of the dying man. The reunion, and the cryopod's frigid nightmares. He agrees to go because he knows he needs it, but the first blast of cold takes him back to the ice planet, to the crash and the skeleton of a beast long dead and the fire he had to guard all night lest the wind put it out. He feels the panic attack coming on, but the pod forces him under, trapping him in dreams of ice and infection and monstrous beasts out for blood.

He wakes still in the throes of panic, and it takes Keith twenty minutes to talk him down. The others have all filed out by then, their fearful expressions sticking in his mind.

Keith knows by then, surely. That something isn't right. Shiro was delirious with pain when Keith found him, but Keith felt none of it. He doesn't have a Mark to match the new, smooth scar on Shiro's thigh.

"It doesn't mean anything," Keith says, leaning against the wall inside Shiro's bedroom door. His face is stormy, his arms folded tight across his chest, and Shiro isn't so lost inside his own head that he doesn't see the uncertainty in that pose. "Pidge is trying to figure out what they did to you this time. Allura says if it has something to do with Quintessence, that might have disrupted the bond, in which case it'll clear up in a couple of days. Probably."

Shiro smiles despite himself. Keith's honesty is comforting, even when it's not.

Keith doesn't stay long that day. They have battles to fight, and they need him in Black.

Shiro wonders, again, whether he really exists, or whether he's a ghost who hasn't let himself move on.

* * *

It's two days later, while the team is out flying another mission and Coran is up on the bridge trying to keep them in the air, that Shiro steals out of his room for the first time since emerging from the cryopod. He goes only as far as Keith's room, because he knows Keith has been writing to Blue. (To Lance. Right. So much changed while he was away.)

Well, now that they have that sorted out, Keith doesn't really need his pen anymore, right? Shiro grabs it, his heart pounding in his throat like he's back with Ulaz, running for the escape pods and expecting a laser in the back at any moment, rather than borrowing a pen from his best friend.

He retreats to his own room and sits on the bed, staring at his arms for long minutes while he works up the courage to put the pen to his skin.

_Sorry I've been quiet for so long. It's been_

He hesitates, running through a million ways to end his sentence. "Rough" doesn't nearly cover it, and "busy" is pure bullshit.

_It's been hell._

He laughs, choking on the first tears he's cried in--god, how long? He blinks, adding an "I love you" to his message before tucking the pen away in his drawer and curling up in bed, his blanket pulled up to his chin so he doesn't check his arm for an answer every five minutes.

(It doesn't work, and he loses more sleep waiting on an answer that never comes.)

* * *

Weeks pass. He pulls himself back together. He writes to Matt every day, even though he knows it's useless. Matt hasn't been able to respond so far, and Shiro's soulbonds still aren't working, but he needs this. He needs to feel like he's still connected to someone, because he's drifting, coming untethered a little more each time Keith returns with a new scrape or burn that he didn't feel.

Lance comes to him one night, without any of the concealer he usually wears, even now that the team knows the truth. A hundred Marks are laid bare on his skin.

He says nothing, just sits with Shiro and puts an arm around him when he bursts into tears. Shiro tries not to think of it as two broken things taking solace in each other. He may be broken, but not Lance. Never Lance.

* * *

It's one month later, and things are bad. Keith's pulling away, spending more and more time with the Blade, returning only when they need him in Black. Dark circles gather beneath his eyes, but he says nothing, and Shiro can't figure out how to say that he's scared. More than scared. Terrified. Terrified that Keith's going to get hurt out there with the Blades, and Shiro won't even know because he lost something when the Galra took him.

They fight.

Shiro never means for it to happen, but he's tired, and he's scared, and he wakes up every day feeling a little more like he's not even real. An anger burns inside him, uncontrollable. It feels like someone else's anger, but maybe that's just because it's the only thing about him that has any substance.

The other paladins take on mission after mission, and Shiro tries to hold it together while they're gone, tries not to micromanage over the comms, tries to let go and let Keith be the black paladin, but he _can't_ , and he hates that about himself. He's arguing with Keith, again, about the risks he's taking inside a Galra base when the pain catches him in the side, driving the breath from his lungs.

Shouts ring out on the comms, and Shiro assumes the worst. Keith was hit. Keith was hit because Shiro distracted him. He can't speak, and it's long seconds before he realizes that he shouldn't have felt anything at all.

His bonds.

They're working again.

He staggers, the relief flooding through him, then rushing back out as Hunk's voice cracks over the furor on the comms, panic pitching it high. "Get him back to the lions! I'll hold them off!"

"What happened?" Shiro demands, seizing the edge of the console in both hands to keep himself upright. "Keith--"

"Lance got shot."

Keith's voice is tense, but there's no pain in it. Not like the pain in Lance's laugh--wet and faltering as Allura hisses out a string of curses.

"I'm fine," Lance says, though he hitches on the words. "Barely grazed me. Don't look at me like that, samurai. I'll--"

He cuts off at the same moment as a fresh spear of pain cuts Shiro to the bone, and in the next instant Shiro's knees hit the floor.

* * *

Keith leaves.

Not that day, and not the next. Not for almost another week. He's hurting, and he's trying not to show it, but Shiro knows it stings. He knows, because he's aching, too. It's not that he doesn't want Lance for a soulmate, because he does. They click in a way Shiro never expected them to, with the Marks on their skin that don't match up to the ones on their soulmates and the dead-end bonds that could never reflect all the things they feel. They click, and Shiro finds himself going to Lance when he starts drifting because Lance always knows how to ground him. It's nice. It's...comforting. Even if Lance sometimes looks at him funny, like Shiro's a puzzle he's trying to figure out.

The problem is that they have proof, now, that Shiro's bonds aren't broken on a fundamental level.

But his bond with Keith _is_.

Keith doesn't say anything. Shiro thinks that's because he doesn't want to seem selfish, or because he doesn't know how to express his hurt without saying he'd rather Shiro really was broken.

But Shiro gets it. It was easier, in a way, when the problem was in him and not in their friendship. He'd rather take the blame on himself than make Keith doubt one of the few stable things in his life.

But the truth is they _have_ been growing apart. There's friction, and there's fighting, and Shiro knows he hasn't been acting like a soulmate. He wants to be surprised that their bond isn't working right, but he can't be.  He can't feel anything other than resignation the day he finally slots back into his bond with Black and Keith packs his belongings.

"I need to do this," Keith says, standing apart from them all on the bridge. He's wearing his Blade armor, not his paladin armor. He's carrying his mother's knife, not his bayard, which he surrendered to Lance along with the Red Lion, and not Shiro's bayard, which neither of them quite feels comfortable with yet.

Shiro tells himself it's not forever. Keith still has Lance and Pidge here, if nothing else. He'll be back. He just needs time to sort out his feelings. He's always needed space when things get bad.

He's never needed space because of Shiro before.

* * *

Matt still doesn't respond, but Shiro keeps writing. He talks about the stars, about the Garrison, about Pidge. He tries to keep things positive, and right now his team is a tripwire to his emotions, so he doesn't talk about the team.

Neither does he talk about the new Mark that's showed up over the last few days, overlapping Matt's. A bold blue beside which Matt's sepia looks faded and dull, the same way Keith's Marks fade beside Lance's. The Y-shaped symbol seems familiar, but Shiro tries not to think about it too hard.

He does take care not to delve into specifics after it shows up, because he doesn't trust Haggar not to have tried to overwrite his bonds with something that serves her.

(He starts to feel not real when he thinks about that for too long, though. He tries to put the possibility out of his mind, and he finds it's all too easy to do so.)

He doesn't manage to ignore the new Mark for long, though--especially once the stranger with the cobalt Mark writes him back.

_So you do exist. I wondered.  
_

* * *

Shiro doesn't write again for weeks, and he switches back to long sleeves to hide the questions that show up at odd hours. _Who are you? What is this Garrison you mentioned? Who is Pidge? Why do you keep speaking as though you know me? Have we met? Where are you?  Do you know who I am?_

_Are you still there?_

_Were you ever?  
_

The questions stop, eventually, and Shiro breathes a sigh of relief.

It doesn't last.

* * *

Pidge finds Matt, and Shiro's world shatters, comes back together, and shatters again all in the space of an hour.

He's older than he was when they last saw each other, with new scars and a limp that he tries to hide and shadows in his eyes that say Shiro didn't protect him as well as he thought he did, and his heart breaks when he sees Matt standing there, one hand clutching his staff even as he puts on a show of smiling and joking like he used to.

(The jokes ring hollow to Shiro's ears.)

And then Matt sees him and freezes, and Shiro doesn't breathe. He's afraid, for a moment, that it's fear or anger that stops Matt in his tracks. But those are tears in the corners of Matt's eyes, and the grin that breaks across his face is genuine and bright, and it stops Shiro's heart in his chest.

But Matt stumbles to a stop just before they would meet, his grin faltering, his eyes closing off. He cuts Shiro's legs out from under him with a single syllable.

_Sir._

Like that's all they are to each other--pilot and engineer, officer and enlisted man. Comrades, but not soulmates.

He tries to laugh it off, pulls Matt into a hug, and for a moment as Matt relaxes he thinks everything's going to be okay. Then Matt turns his head, resting it on Shiro's shoulder with his breath ghosting over his neck.

"You stopped writing," he said. "I thought--I don't know what I thought."

Shiro holds him tighter, resisting the truth that settles into his bones. But he knows what this means. He's known it since his bond with Keith failed.

And Matt deserves to know.

* * *

To Matt's credit, he doesn't let the broken bond stop him. Things are hesitant between them, but that's more because of the year of trauma and war that separates them, and Matt still holds his hand and kisses him, and if those small gestures are all they can steal between battles, Shiro will take it.

He's starting to feel like he doesn't exist again, and the cobalt words burned into his skin twinge every time Matt's hands come near. This feels like a lie. It feels like a betrayal. He doesn't even know which one of them he's cheating on.

It's almost a relief when Matt gets called back to the rebels. Pidge is sad to see him go, but Shiro feels as though a weight has been lifted off his chest.

(He hates himself for that, a little bit.)

He hates himself more when, later that same night, he goes automatically to write to Matt to say he misses him and he sees instead a delicate script, not so foreign now as it once was.

_Do you ever find it difficult to trust people?_

He stares at the words for a long time, pen in hand, fighting the tug in his gut that says this is his lot now. He might as well embrace it.

_Lately? I mostly find it difficult to trust myself._

The stranger on the other end of the bond doesn't respond for a long while, and Shiro stares at his own words, bile rising in his throat. He stands, his breath coming shallow, and hurries to the bathroom to wash the words away.

As he reaches for the sink, though, new letters appear.

_Perhaps whoever chooses these bonds knows what they're doing after all. It seems we're the same, you and I._

_Sometimes I don't even know who I am._

* * *

He tries not to think about the words, but they stick in his head, echoed back to him in his own voice at night when sleep eludes him. The writing has long since faded, but he sees the shadow of it on his skin each time he checks to see if the stranger has written him again.

They don't, though. Not until the day before Naxzela, when a single sentence appears in small letters on the inside of his wrist.

_I think I made a mistake._

Shiro comes out of the next battle feeling much the same.

* * *

Shiro does not trust Lotor, but then, Lotor doesn't expect to be trusted. There's something comforting about the dance, as though they're all on the same page, even if none of them have quite figured out which page that is.

They settle into a routine. Shiro and Allura go to speak with the captive prince. He provides them a target and the intel they need to make a clean hit. The paladins carry out the plan, chip away at Zarkon's power, return home to start the cycle all over ahead. Shiro reaches out to Keith, to Matt, to the stranger behind the blue writing.

None of them responds.

Lance reaches out to him, but Shiro only snaps at him, angry and hurt and frustrated at the constant reminders of all the ways in which he's broken. The flash of pain on Lance's face pulls him up short, but by then it's too late. Lance flashes a smile and sees himself off the bridge, and Shiro doesn't even know anymore how not to hurt the people he cares about.

* * *

He sees the Mark by accident as they're handcuffing Lotor, ready to make the exchange for Commander Holt. The armor Lotor wears normally covers his arms from elbow to wrist, but Allura expects a trick and she orders him to remove it. He complies with venom in his eyes and biting comments muttered under his breath, but Shiro hears none of it, because there on his skin in a delicate silver-white is the same Y-shaped sigil that's all but eclipsed the old Mark on Shiro's own wrist.

In all honesty, Shiro had never considered that someone like Lotor might have a soulmate. He certainly never entertained the possibility that that soulmate might be _him_.

For a moment he's perfectly, blindingly certain that this is Haggar's doing. Allura was right from the start. Lotor can't be trusted. He hasn't reformed in the slightest; this whole thing was a farce meant to gain their trust so Lotor could steal Voltron back for his father. Lotor didn't ruin Haggar's plans at Naxzela--it was all a feint. Haggar doesn't want to destroy Voltron. She wants to claim it for her own. What better way to accomplish that than by getting an agent of her own inside the castle-ship?

Shiro's hands shake, and for a moment, he considers summoning his bayard and killing Lotor then and there before he can betray them all.

And yet--those words.

_I don't even know who I am._

It could be another trick. Something Haggar told him to say to get under Shiro's skin. A knife aimed straight at Shiro's weakest point. A crippling strike from someone he's supposed to trust implicitly.

But he can't forget the cadence of the words as they appeared on his skin, hesitant at first and then all in a rush. It was the doubt in the writing that plucked at him as much as the words themselves, and surely--surely that can't have been an act. Surely Haggar doesn't have the power to craft soulbonds. Surely he can hold that much as true.

He holds himself back as they finish their preparations for the trade, Allura finally relenting and letting Lotor keep his armor. Shiro watches, and the resignation in Lotor's smile strikes him in the chest. _Do you ever find it difficult to trust people?_

How can they, when neither of them trusts themself?

He makes his decision in an instant, summoning his bayard while the others aren't looking and pressing it into Lotor's hand.

"Keep it hidden," he whispers. "And don't lose it."

Lotor goes rigid, his eyes darting down once, and that's genuine surprise in his parted lips, it must be. He recovers quickly, and nods to Shiro before feigning disinterest as Matt and Pidge climb aboard the shuttle with them.

Shiro feels Lotor's gaze burning into the back of his head as he flies them to the rendezvous, feels Lotor's Mark burning a hole in his skin, and he's all too aware of Matt beside him and of the broken bond between them.

Betrayal. It seems like that's all he's capable of these days. Even when he has the best of intentions, he only ends up hurting the people closest to him.

But it's too late now. He's made his choice.

He only prays it wasn't the wrong one.

* * *

Lotor is more watchful after that--of Shiro, of Allura, of all the paladins. Shiro can't tell if he knows about their bond or not. He seems more friendly now, but that might just be because he's no longer a prisoner. Shiro knows all too well how different things look from inside a cell. It was far easier to trust Ulaz in hindsight than in the moment.

The thought makes his stomach turn, and not just because Lotor is, apparently, his soulmate. (He still doesn't know how to feel about that, actually, but he knows that he's been in Lotor's shoes, and though he knows they had to be careful, he can't help wondering whether they really needed to lock Lotor up.)

The others are beginning to loosen up, too. They still aren't totally comfortable around Lotor, but he did kill Zarkon. It's hard to accuse them of being in league after that. There's still the question of what Lotor wants, but...

Shiro doesn't know. He feels a certain kinship with Lotor. It's one of the only real connections he has anymore.

That terrifies him.

* * *

Lotor must know.

Shiro writes to him nightly now, philosophical debates in abstract that offer up nothing either of them wouldn't want to surrender but nevertheless fill his evenings with the kind of inquisitiveness that forces the existential dread to take a back seat. Lotor is a scholar at heart, beneath the shell of military command. Shiro sees it in the questions that pop up on his skin at odd hours. _Can a title make a leader, do you suppose? Can a man learn to be that which people call him? Or will he only ever be himself, no matter the trappings you pile atop him?_

_They say history repeats itself, but is that only for the ills sentient beings have wrought on themselves? Or do you suppose the glory of the past will return again, presuming we haven't destroyed ourselves by then?_

_Is atonement a goal to be obtained, or can it only inform your actions as you chase the horizon?  
_

It's... bizarre, to say the least. To spend the day planning battles with a man who, not so long ago, built a ship that came closer than anything before it to destroying Voltron. And then, at night, to muse about morality, existentialism, and the meaning of forgiveness.

And always, always, he has to wonder if he's being set up. He always assumed Haggar was loyal to Zarkon first, but what if she discarded him in favor of his son? Zarkon's single-minded focus on the Black Lion proved to be a weakness, and Lotor takes a far broader view of the war. They might very well be working together.

That thought terrifies him, and not because of the danger it poses to his team.

* * *

He doesn't know what drives him to strike a deal with Lotor behind his team's back. The Kral Zera--a tremendous opportunity, to be sure, but also a tremendous risk. Lance was right about that.

He should listen to Lance more. He knows he should. Lance is his soulmate and his right hand among the paladins. He's the one Shiro should trust--more than he trusts Lotor, surely. But it hurts. It hurts to look at Lance and remember that Keith still hasn't come back, not once since he left. They haven't talked. They haven't seen each other except when Kolivan calls to confer with the paladins and Keith stands at his shoulder, stoic and withdrawn and so, so guarded.

(It's not Lance's fault. None of it is Lance's fault. But Shiro feels sick to his stomach every time he indulges in a bond he gained at the cost of his bond with Keith.)

(He should feel sick indulging in his bond with Lotor, too, but he doesn't. Sometimes, alone in the darkness of his room, he has to wonder why.)

The Kral Zera is an impulse. A hook in his gut that yanks him right off his feet. He doesn't know if it's him, or if it's Lotor, or if Haggar really does have her claws inside his head. He just.

Does it.

It turns out okay in the end. He doesn't let himself think about anything else except the smile in Lotor's eyes when he unveils the banners that mark his ascension to the throne--banners that bear the same symbol painted in cobalt blue on the inside of Shiro's wrist.

* * *

He really hasn't been fair to Lance. He knows that, and he knows that Lance is trying--trying to fill Keith's spot, trying to be there for Shiro, trying to hold the team together when half of them are infighting at any given moment. Lance doesn't like Lotor and Allura leaving to visit Oriande without the rest of them. Shiro doesn't like it, either, if he's honest. He wishes he could take Allura's place, and he's not sure if that's because he doesn't trust Lotor, or because he does.

His head hurts.

It has on and off since he returned, and he usually tries to ignore it, but sitting there in a failing castle for endless hours, painfully aware that there's nothing he can do to help, the pain comes flooding back in.

He doesn't do well with inactivity. Never has.

It's worse since he was recaptured, though.

He tells himself later it was oxygen deprivation, because he feels like a different person standing in the hallway with Lance. His thoughts drift back to Olkarion. To the panic. To the darkness. He hasn't noticed anything off about his bond with the Black Lion since they reconnected, but he doesn't remember the void the others talked about.

He opens his mouth, and the words don't come.

Lance leans his head against the wall, every line of his body slumped. "It's okay," he says. "You don't need to babysit me."

And Shiro realizes Lance is another person he's failed. They're soulmates. They're supposed to be. It doesn't feel like they are, though, and Lance has obviously picked up on it if he thinks he's a burden. Just someone for Shiro to babysit.

Everything in him tells him to keep his mouth shut, to ignore the doubts swirling inside him. He shouldn't burden anyone else with his own paranoia.

He almost listens.

Ironically enough, it's his conversations with Lotor that convince him otherwise. They talked two nights ago (in writing, always in writing; they both know by now but neither has said a word aloud) about self doubt.

_What do you do when you know something that you can't let yourself admit?_

_Something like what?_ Shiro asked, his head pounding and his thoughts in a fuzz.

_Something that would change the way you see yourself. The way others see you. Something you know is true--you know it is--but there's a corner of your mind that keeps saying you've made it all up. It's so easy to listen to that voice and go on pretending, but I'm not sure that serves any real purpose._

Shiro stared at the words in silence, the faux wisdom of the black paladin failing him. What did you do when the truth was staring you in the face but you were too afraid to stare back?

 _I used to have someone to talk to,_ Lotor admitted. _But I burned that bridge well and truly. I wish now I hadn't. She would have known what to do._

Once, Shiro might have taken this to Keith. But, like Lotor, he's burned his bridges. He's burned his bridges with everyone.

But Lance is here, and Shiro thinks that--maybe--

The words spill out of him, and Lance gives no response, just stares at him, his jaw slack, his eyes pained, and when Shiro finally runs out of words, Lance puts and arm around his shoulder and helps him sit down, side by side against the wall.

"You must think I'm crazy," Shiro says, staring at his hands.

Lance says nothing.

"I'm sorry, Lance." He shakes his head, bile rising in his throat. His head is pounding again, making it hard to think--so hard to think. "I-I shouldn't have said anything. Just forget about it."

Lance puts his hands in his lap and stares at them for several seconds before his fingers find the catch on his left gauntlet. "I didn't want to say anything. I know this is a touchy subject for... Well, for a lot of people. And we already knew they did something to your soulbonds when they took you. I figured this was all part of that, but--"

He pulls off the gauntlet and pushes back the sleeve of his undersuit, revealing a swath of brown skin peppered with colorful Marks. Shiro's eyes find his own immediately. They had a close call last week, and Shiro took a hit to the arm. The cryopod healed it overnight, but it left him with a teardrop-shaped burn scar on the back of his wrist, just below the Mark from Keith's hoverbike accident so long ago.

Both Marks are there on Lance's skin, of course, Keith's a far more vivid red than the Mark on Shiro's skin. And below it is the burn Mark in a glistening silver-white.

He looks up, mind utterly, horrifyingly silent, and meets Lance's eyes.

"Maybe it doesn't mean anything," Lance says.

But Shiro knows--he knows.

The Marks on Lance's skin don't lie.

"I'm... I'm not Shiro, am I?"


	2. Lotor

He'll always remember the look on her face.

The coldness. The pain she tries to hide.

She's not angry, staring down the barrel of her gun at him. She doesn't hate him. He thinks maybe she should.

But this isn't about him. It's about Narti.

He supposes, when it comes right down to it, he shouldn't be surprised he loses that contest.

* * *

Soulmates are among the universe's greatest cons.

No, that's a petty thing to say. The existence of soulbonds is demonstrable fact, and a preponderance of evidence suggests that the existence of a bond does, in fact, correlate with emotional compatibility. It's anyone's guess whether the bond causes the relationship or the potential relationship fosters the bond, but the fact is soulmates exist, and they aren't meaningless.

(That didn't stop a younger Lotor, lonely and bitter, from declaring the whole culture a sham and spending a century and a half on a futile quest to prove conventional wisdom wrong.)

The problem, he knows, is that soulbonds--indeed, any relationship--normally functions on the understanding that all parties involved operate on something approaching the same time scale. The histories say young Alteans rarely interacted with other species' adolescents, as the narrow window in which both were of a similar developmental window proved unsatisfying both to those who found themselves outgrowing the interests of their onetime friends and to those who were left behind for more mature pursuits. And Alteans only lived a few centuries.

* * *

Lotor doesn't remember much of his childhood. Ten thousand years is a great deal of time for one mind to contain, much less a mind that evolved to contain scarcely a hundredth of that span.

He had a soulmate, once. A playmate? A caretaker. Both, perhaps. He thinks they were with him for quite some time. They were one of the few who stayed.

He wonders if that's what a soulmate is to him. A constant in a universe that seems to change every time he looks away. Someone who stays by his side when the paradox of his existence sweeps through him, leaving him floundering yet again.

He doesn't have many Marks from his first soulmate. A strange thing, for someone so close to the son of the Emperor. He would have expected a soldier--someone to train him, to fit him into the mold of an ideal Galra. He wonders now if whoever it was wasn't a scholar, like him. Perhaps that's why he is the way he is.

He drifts from assignment to assignment, carrying out his father's will, ignoring the itch between his shoulders that says everyone close to him wants him dead. He studies local cultures and collects ancient texts in an attempt to dampen the hunger that yawns inside him.

He thinks maybe, if he finds the right answers, he might stop caring that his soulmates exist only in the abstract.

* * *

There are two kinds of soulmate. He learns this early on. Every culture has its own line drawn to separate one from the other. Here they call them mates of the flesh and mates of the mind. There they are those-who-take-your-hand and those-who-guard-your-back. An answer to your questions, and a balm for your aches. Romantic and platonic. Passion and constancy.

Lotor remembers devouring all these accounts, searching for the hidden truths of the universe.

The truth is, the distinction is far less compelling than the stories would have him believe.

One kind of soulmate haunts him from the past.

The other haunts him from the future.

* * *

He knows his Marks better than he knows his private quarters on his own personal ship. After all, he's spent ten thousands years mapping his skin, wringing every drop of information he can out of each Mark. (Knowledge. He craves knowledge--any knowledge, all knowledge--with a desperation he can never fully explain.) He's determined that his first soulmate had had two minor surgeries, one cosmetic, and that they'd likely been left-handed. He knows they died of a laser wound to the back, just below the shoulder blade, at an angle that would have killed them instantly.

He suspects the laser was meant for him.

He doesn't know as much about his other soulmate, the one he hasn't met. With them, he has only the one Mark to go off of. And what a curious Mark it is. It seems familiar to him, though it takes him aeons to place it.

He comes across it in one of his mother's files, alongside a description of the new alliance between Altea and Daibazaal.

To have such a mark emblazoned on the wrist of the Emperor's son borders on heresy, and Lotor recalls distant days when he was lectured for rolling up his sleeves. He thought nothing of it until now--just another part of the complicated etiquette that governs the life of a prince.

Now he wonders whether it was shame that drove his father to hide the Mark on Lotor's arm, as it was shame that led to Lotor's banishment.

It matters little, in the end. The only thing that matters is that this Mark speaks to a past more ancient than the one his other Marks witnessed. He strains to remember whether the person on the other end of this Mark ever wrote to him, back when he was too young to care, back before millennia drove out memories that must once have been precious.

He can't see how a Mark like that could speak to something yet to come. More likely his soulmate lived on Altea of old and died in hiding after its destruction. They might have met, if history had taken another course.

As it is, Lotor thinks he must have left fate behind ten thousand years ago. For all the ministers tout the agelessness of Zarkon and his son as hallmarks of their divine right to rule, Lotor is under no such delusions. It is an unnatural thing, to live so long. He's long since left his soulmates behind.

Perhaps he left his soul with them.

* * *

Thousands of years pass without a change to the patterns on his skin, and then one day there's something new. Occasional bursts of phantom pain, gone as soon as they arrive. He thinks he's been poisoned, or that he's contracted a disease his doctors don't know how to diagnose. He suspects everyone of conspiracy, fires six doctors, has one executed. He withdraws from his duties and the crew that, until then, has had his trust. He searches for answers, doubting any answer he doesn't arrive at on his own.

It takes a year before he even considers that he might have a third soulmate, and even then he can't be sure. There have been no Marks yet, and he wonders if he's conjuring imagined aches just to believe for a moment that he's still connected to someone in this great, vast empire of his father's. He wonders if someone found a way to forge soulbonds and means to use it to gain sway over the prince of the Galra.

Then one day, a flash of pain that cuts through the doldrums of monitoring a minor territory, sharper than the ones that came before. His mind, as always, leaps to assassinations and sabotage, paranoia never more than a step away. The pain is hot, and it stings in waves that reach halfway down his shin--but even so it's a shallow pain, and it fades soon after the first spike.

When he finally gets away from his officers (his watchers, more like) to look at the unbroken skin of his leg, he almost laughs aloud. A new Mark stares back at him, a supernova in indigo.

It's been so long, he'd forgotten how it felt to skin his knee.

* * *

It's years yet before he meets her, of course. But that's okay. He's been alone for thousands of years. What's twenty more?

(Besides, he thinks. It's better for her to not get mixed up with him. Let her live her own life for a while, before she becomes the halfbreed prince's soulmate, hated by half the universe and played for a fool by the rest.)

He occupies himself with age-old searches. The hunt for Oriande, the methodical tour of his mother's memorabilia, the careful documentation of what fragments remain of old Altea. The quest for knowledge has become like another soulmate to him, its hooks sunk deep into his flesh as it drags him along from planet to planet.

He tried to save planets like these, once.

He thinks saving them is what he meant to do.

He thinks instead he may have only prolonged the agony of their decline.

But he can't stop. The universe holds secrets no mortal has ever known. It holds answers to all his questions, even the ones he has yet to ask. He craves that knowledge. He hungers for it.

It's easy to forget about the indigo Marks and the occasional flashes of pain when he's staring into the depths of the unknown.

* * *

He meets Acxa on a dying planet.

It's ironic, in retrospect. She's technically an imperial citizen, but she toes the line of rebellion, leading the local police force even as she assassinates three successive regents who strip the planet of Quintessence and the workforce of food.

(She doesn't care about the planet, per se, except that she's stuck there and she doesn't want to die for a paycheck. He can't fault her for that.)

Zarkon grows tired of the constant upheaval, so he sends his son. Lotor doubts anyone expect his reputation to put an end to the rebellion, but his father will be happy regardless of which side dies. Which makes it especially ironic when, instead of executing the rebel leader like he's supposed to, Lotor gives her a promotion.

* * *

"Why did you spare me?" she asks, a few days later. Lotor has sent his officers back to the heart of the Empire, one by one. (It's a mercy, though he'd never insult them by saying so aloud. If he let them stay, Acxa probably would have murdered them, too. And then he really would have to execute her.)

"You're my soulmate," he says with a flip of his wrist. It's a word that's lost all meaning over the course of his long life, but he knows the power it holds over others. He figures it will satisfy her, at least for now. She's probably delighted to have such sway over someone like him. Someone she can use to get the freedom she's been chasing for so long.

Instead she scoffs, rolling her shoulder beneath the weight of her new armor. It makes her look like an officer. She says it makes her look like a joke.

"You didn't know that." She stares at him like no one else dares to, a challenge in her eyes. She looks at him not as a prince to be revered or a highborn brat to be brushed aside as quickly and delicately as possible.

She looks at him like an equal, and Lotor is surprised to find the hunger inside him quiet for once. He leans forward, uncrossing his legs to lean his elbows on his knees. "I'm sorry?"

Her fist comes to rest on her hip--just a twitch away from her gun. Her eyes dart around the bridge, and he knows she's expecting a trap. The prince alone with a known, armed assassin, with only a handful of sentries to stop her? She must think he has higher aims than her, that she's bait dangled before a behemoth, but in truth, he's just a fool who can't leave an enigma alone.

"You didn't know," Acxa repeats, each word crisp. She doesn't mumble, doesn't shy away from the demands she's making. He might assume she simply doesn't understand who he is, but in two days he's already gained an appreciation for her attention to detail. She lifts her chin and fixes him with a scowl. "You only realized who I was to you when you saw this." She presses two fingers to the back of her neck, where a cobalt Mark lurks. Few know of Lotor's matching scar--the memento, he thinks, of some early medical treatment. His mother's files say it was a turbulent pregnancy, and his father won't let him forget he was a sickly child.

A smile pulls at his lips. "Perhaps I didn't know," he says. "Perhaps I only believed it to be true."

Her expression says she won't put up with his shit, prince or no, and his smile only grows wider.

"Fine." He leans back, calling up the files that are the focus of his current research. "Perhaps I just didn't want to see a valuable resource go to waste."

It's as much a lie as the first, and she knows it, but it's an act they're both content to play, at least for a time. Easier that than to admit they're kindred spirits, nascent rebels who don't want to see the Empire crumble to ash--no, rebuilding after that would be far too much work.

They just want to see a change in leadership.

* * *

They collect the others slowly.

Rather, Acxa collects them, doling out promotions without consulting Lotor and then blinking at him in feigned innocence when she introduces him to his newest general.

Zethrid, a brute of a woman who could have reached the highest rank in the army if not for the unfortunate fact that she was born to a slave in a ravaged, forgotten labor colony.

Ezor, a dancer entertaining the Imperial elite and flashing coy smiles to any who glance her way. (Acxa never confirms that it was Ezor who poisoned the men with unspoken reputations for violence toward their mistresses, and Lotor never asks. He certainly won't miss the ones who died.)

Silent Narti, who seems by all accounts to have emerged one day from a druid's lab with Kova in tow, a deadly warrior with no past to speak of.

(Lotor almost objects to Narti. He can taste Haggar's magic on her, and he doesn't trust that woman or her projects as far as he can throw them. Paranoia rears its head for the first time in a long while, and it's all Lotor can do not to draw his sword whenever he notices her watching him. But Acxa ignores his protests, and over time the stench of druidcraft--and the electric flashes of suspicion--fades to a distant memory.)

It's some time before he makes a connection between Acxa's three generals and the tri-color mark on the inside of her wrist.

* * *

The funny thing about having a soulmate, Lotor soon discovers, is that you can't keep it separate from the rest of your life. There is no scheme, no search, no question that isn't touched by Acxa's methodical planning and analytic mind. She's far more pragmatic than Lotor's philosophical bent, but mysteries captivate her as surely as they do him, and the two of them spend vargas poring over old records in search of fragments of the truth.

He speaks to her of secrets he's never uttered aloud, and he no longer carries out his plans alone. It irritates him, and it encourages him, and for two years he tries to run from their connection.

He never makes it far. Acxa is far too conscious that she has no place in the Empire they purport to serve without Lotor to vouch for her. She only trusts him so far, but they both know he's better than the alternative, and Acxa's survival instinct is far too strong to let him go without a fight.

Things are good with the five of them. There's no escaping the Empire entirely, but most days they manage to forget what's happening in the heart of Zarkon's power. They go their own way, pursue their own goals, and everyone else mostly leaves them be.

It's nice, in a way. Comfortable.

He lets himself grow complacent.

* * *

It's not being called back to the Empire that upsets the balance they've struck. They could have made it work, governing the Empire. If Lotor had been more careful, they could have. Acxa has the managerial skills, Lotor the charisma, Ezor the cunning, Zethrid and Narti the raw intimidation factor. It would have taken time away from other pursuits, but it might have kept Haggar from meddling.

But Lotor cares little for politics. He takes the throne, puts on a little show to assure the officers that he's not there to be pushed around, and otherwise lets the generals govern themselves. It's what they would have done anyway, and Lotor has little interest in conquest. Let them sate their own thirst for blood and glory, he figures. As long as Lotor doesn't deprive them of their sport, they should have no reason to revolt.

Besides, everyone knows Lotor is only there to safeguard Zarkon's throne until the witch restores him, as she keeps saying she will.

A few months from now, things will be back to the way they were, so Lotor sees no reason to abandon his scholarly pursuits.

He does take advantage of the opportunity to observe Voltron first-hand. His research all points to Voltron being the key to it all. To the rift, and the endless energy that lies within. To piercing the barriers between realities. Perhaps even to Oriande itself.

Lotor does what he's always done: he watches, and he waits.

In the end, that proves to be his undoing.

* * *

The first time the writing appears on his arm, he thinks it must be a hallucination.

_Pidge is still looking for you, so I know you must be out there. You'd never let her down._

It's so mundane, yet so bizarre, and he can't make any sense of it. Who is Pidge, and why is she looking for him? The slew of late nights and the sting of display screens must be getting to him, he thinks. Or...

Old fears return, fears of false bonds and spies inserting themselves into Lotor's own soul. The words no longer seem innocently nonsensical; he looks at them now and sees the first move of a chess game with his life and his sanity as the stakes.

(After three vargas on the main computer preparing contingency plans in case his so-called soulmate turns out to be a spy, Acxa finally puts her foot down and tells him to get some sleep.)

(He doesn't look at his arm for the next two days.)

* * *

_Is it pathetic to say I miss the Garrison? I know we were miserable when we were there, but at least there weren't real lives riding on our decisions._

Lotor stares at the words, contemplating them. They've appeared a few times since the first, always at odd hours. He sometimes wakes to find a monologue on his arm, but other times he sees nothing for days at a time. He thinks perhaps that's because he spends so much time in his armor, trying his best to run an army from a distance (and to run away from the words on his arm.) He doesn't make any effort to catch the messages he knows he must be missing.

The oddest thing about the words is how familiar they are. As though the stranger behind the white letters has been speaking to him for years, but those memories have been wiped from Lotor's mind.

Or maybe they've just been pushed out by his obsessive hunt for answers. Acxa can testify to the effort it takes to get him out of his own head sometimes.

"They could be a spy," he tells her, twirling a pen in his hand. He owns nothing of the sort, of course, so he had to borrow one of Acxa's, which means he had to tell her what's been going on. (He suspects she already knew.)

Acxa's sprawled sideways in a chair--loose in a way she only allows herself to be when she's off duty. For all she started life as a rebel, she has the discipline of a soldier. It kept her alive. So perhaps this looseness is a sign she's grown as complacent as him, in which case he feels he owes her an apology.

He has a feeling if he voices this opinion, she'll fling her own pen at him. (Which might prove deadly; she's been taking lessons with Ezor.) So he watches, mesmerized, as she prints small, neat letters on her arm. She's too far away for him to see what the others have to say, but he knows by now which color corresponds to whom. It's mostly Ezor writing now, in her flamboyant yellow script, though Zethrid's compact pink shows up here and there. He doesn't see anything to match the magenta that forms the third spear on Acxa's Mark.

Come to think of it, he's not sure he's ever seen Narti writing to the others.

Acxa looks up at him, lips pursed. "Write," she commands.

"But--"

She glares, and Lotor's protests die on his tongue. "Look, I know caution is your thing," she says, going back to her conversation with the others. "But this is your soulmate we're talking about. You can always trust your soulmates. That's what they're there for."

Well that's just patently untrue. It's not common knowledge in the Empire, but Lotor has gathered as many of his mother's files as he can find. Some are more personal in nature than others, so he knows Zarkon's soulmate was King Alfor of Altea.

Lotor knows precisely how that ended, and he's not eager to repeat his father's mistakes.

" _Write_ ," Acxa says. "You can always kill them later if they turn out to be dead weight."

He lifts his eyes away from the words on his arm. "Please don't tell me that was your plan when I brought you on board."

She only smirks, and Lotor sighs, but puts his pen to his skin and writes the greeting that's been playing on loop in his head for days.

_So you do exist. I wondered._

* * *

His soulmate isn't a spy. He's fairly certain of that much.

Unfortunately, he's also fairly certain they don't actually exist.

He writes infrequently at first, probing questions to try to figure out who he's dealing with. Ezor calls it small-talk and offers to give him tips. Evidently she carried many of the early conversations among the quartet. Acxa actually blushes when Ezor asks for her opinion on her skills, which is a commendation in itself. Lotor might take Ezor up on her offer if he were actually attempting small-talk.

The truth is, this is an interrogation.

He gets no answers to his questions--not who this stranger is, not why they act so familiar with him. For days, they write nothing at all, and the doubts begin to creep back in.

(Ten thousand years without a soulmate, and he thinks he'd find two in one lifetime?)

It's in a fit of uncharacteristic melancholy that he lets his defenses come crashing down. He's tired and angry--at his soulmate for abandoning him, but mostly at himself for letting himself hope for something meaningful. Acxa has him spoiled, it seems. He'd do well to remember that the rest of the universe doesn't care like she does.

 _Are you still there?_ he writes, the pen pressing so deep into his arm that he hears Acxa hiss from across the room. He lets up at once, guilt rising to choke him, and all at once the anger evaporates, leaving only loneliness in its wake.  _Were you ever?_

It's stupid to be so upset over this. Over a stranger who never wrote him more than a hundred words.

He can't help it.

He drops Acxa's pen in her lap as he storms out of the room in search of more productive pursuits.

* * *

Days creep by. Lotor makes slow progress in collecting the equipment he needs for his next experiment. Haggar remains undeterred by her pattern of failure and continues sending people to spy on him. Some come openly, with deference or arrogance. Some come in the dark to glean a few details of his actions and his plans. He cuts communication with the capital, drops out of official channels, kills any who try to get near him.

It doesn't help.

Haggar is always a step ahead of him, always waiting when he makes a move. She's already blocked him from requisitioning the  artifacts he needs for his quest (the ones he might have requisitioned in the first place), so he's resorted to theft and black market dealings, and even there he always finds Haggar's people waiting.

He grows more paranoid by the day, shutting down every potential security risk in an attempt to safeguard himself, his mission, and his team.

It's not enough.

There's nowhere left for Haggar to be slipping inside his guard.

Nowhere she could possibly have a modicum of influence.

Unless she's gotten to one of his generals.

* * *

_Do you ever find it difficult to trust people?_

Lotor stares at his own words, keenly aware of the silence around him. He's in his private quarters now, locked away from everyone, even Acxa. He can't face her now.

He can't stop wondering if she finally betrayed him.

It's ironic, then, that he's gone to his other soulmate with this, when he knows so little about them. All he knows is that they want nothing to do with him.

He supposes that's a mark in their favor, in this case.

The last two days have been bad. Jumping at every noise, second guessing everything his generals say. He'd even begun to compose an argument in his head for his generals having a fifth soulmate in their circle, one who reports everything they write directly to Haggar. He wonders if he should be monitoring their communications more closely. He's never bothered before.

So here he is, writing to someone who may not even exist.

There's no answer for the longest time, and Lotor almost gives up on this plan. He'll figure something else out. Set up extra cameras and feed the generals false information one at a time to see where the leak is. It will be hard to do so without tipping off Acxa... But if he clears her first, then he may be able to get her on his side.

When an answer finally appears, it takes Lotor a moment to process it.

_Lately? I mostly find it difficult to trust myself._

A laugh breaks out of him, razor-edged and bitter, and he reaches for the drink waiting on the edge of his desk. It might as well be a more honest version of himself writing the words. Looking at his actions, especially this last week, he feels a flush of shame. His paranoia is largely unfounded, he _knows_ that, and little bursts of anger keep rising from nowhere, erupting into the apprehensive cockpit before fading into the ether so quick it's difficult to recall them even a varga later. The obsession, the _hunger_ , that has been his constant companion for ages is restless lately, a predator scenting injured prey on the wind.

It scares him, in the rare moments he's not caught up in the frenzy.

 _Perhaps whoever chooses these bonds knows what they're doing after all,_ he writes. _It seems we're the same, you and I. Sometimes I don't even know who I am._

It may be the effect of the drink, burning in his veins after a long day with little appetite, but Lotor imagines he can feel Haggar's eyes watching him from the dark corners of his room.

* * *

The end happens in a blur.

Haggar has found him again, and again the list of suspects is dangerously short.

But it's more than that. It's no longer simple suspicion that burns in his bones. He tastes it: Haggar's magic is thick in the air, thicker than it's been in years.

He turns, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end, and he knows--he _knows_ \--the witch is staring back at him.

He feels nothing as he cuts Narti down except a momentary relief from the paranoia that's had him in its grip for so long.

He found the spy. He plugged the leak.

(And it wasn't Acxa. Whatever else happens, he can take solace in the fact that Acxa didn't betray him.)

Then he turns, and the horror in Acxa's voice puts a coal in his stomach. She stares at him, eyes wide and wet, mouth half open in a protest.

He tells himself she'll understand. Once they're away from here and he has a chance to explain, she'll understand.

He never gets that chance.

* * *

It's mere hours later that Acxa turns on him, and he finds he can't blame her.

He forced her to choose between one soulmate and the others.

He supposes anyone would have made the same decision.

Still the sorrow in her voice when she pronounces his doom hurts him as surely as the following blow must hurt her.

"For Narti."

* * *

He wakes up hurting from more than a blow to the head. His hands are cuffed behind his back, the voices of his onetime friends ringing in his ears.

Acxa's voice sounds harder than luxite, and it strikes Lotor in that half-awake daze that they mean to kill him.

For once it isn't the paranoia talking. He's left them no choice. Kill him, or deliver him to Haggar--it's all the same to Lotor, and either way, it's the one shot Acxa and her remaining soulmates have for survival.

He understands.

But he wants to survive, too.

He doesn't scream when his shoulder pops out of its socket, but Acxa does, and the moment of chaos as Ezor and Zethrid's fear for Acxa takes over is enough for Lotor to disengage his ship from theirs.

He runs, body aching, until he loses them, and when he stops he knows he's reached the end. There's nowhere for him to go. There's no one left for him to turn to.

He's in Acxa's shuttle, Acxa herself having taken Lotor's place in the cockpit of the main cruiser. He finds her pen in a compartment beside the seat, and he stares at it for the longest moment.

 _I think I made a mistake,_ he writes.

It's not enough, but he can't bring himself to apologise. He did what he had to, just as he always has. Just as they all always have.

Soulbonds are the universe's last great lie.

He runs to Voltron and tries not to think of the Mark on his wrist.

* * *

The paladins let him use the cryo-replenisher.

He knows it's because they need time to discuss their next move where he can't overhear, but he appreciates the healing just the same. (He knows he's hurt Acxa enough already.)

After the cryopod comes a prison cell, and long days of tedium broken only by brief, infrequent visits from the princess and her black paladin.

He's taken by Allura at once. Her caution, her poise. Her confidence. He thinks they could be great friends if they'd met under different circumstances.

It's impossible to ignore the parallels. Their fathers were soulmates, and they ruled under the same sigil that now marks Lotor's wrist. A mark, he can't help but notice, that's the same color as the hair of Altean royalty.

The same color as the Marks on Zarkon's skin.

The possibility sickens him and enamors him in equal measure, and he looks forward to her visits with the kind of anticipation that makes him feel uneasy.

He's already seen how soulbonds work out for him.

He shouldn't be so eager to ruin another.

(He craves that connection just the same, and as the doubts appear on his skin only to fade hours later, he wishes they'd at least let him keep his pen so he wouldn't feel so alone inside his cell.)

* * *

Shiro slips into his life unnoticed.

Not that Lotor doesn't register his presence; he's careful to take note of everything around him. He's alone and outnumbered among a group of potential hostiles, so anyone and everyone has to be treated as a threat--and the black paladin, the _Champion_ , is a threat in any context.

Anyway, Shiro and Allura are the only ones he sees with any regularity--though he did hear someone call the green paladin Pidge, which means he was right. His soulmate is here. He spends so much time watching Allura for signs that she might be the one who shares his doubts, though, that he doesn't think much of Shiro.

Not until he's going to the slaughter and Shiro presses a weapon into his hand.

Not just any weapon.

A bayard.

The black bayard--once Zarkon's weapon, now Shiro's. One-of-a-kind, perfectly suited to each wielder, and completely irreplaceable.

And Shiro gives it freely.

There's very little time to be shaken by this fact; Lotor has to adjust his expectations from certain death to only likely death. And then he sees Acxa, feels each blow she takes as she fights to keep the green paladin and her brother away from their father. There's no time to fear for her survival, but even so, he breathes a sigh of relief when her aches persist after the battle ends.

And he wins.

His father lies dead at his feet. It's the end of an aeon, and it turns out Lotor may yet have a hand in shaping the next.

He catches Shiro's eyes after it's over, and something unspoken passes between them, and Lotor wonders.

* * *

They speak more these days, his soulmate and him. Sometimes he still hears Allura's voice in the measured responses he gets, but more and more its the black paladin he sees in his mind's eye. Cold, hard, and decisive on the surface, but not so cold as to let Lotor walk to his death unarmed. Not so implacable as the face he projects to the world.

It's the Kral Zera that finally convinces him.

There's no reason for the paladins to trust him, he knows, even after he kills Zarkon. Any Galra would seize a chance to rule if it came their way, and nearly all would do so for selfish reasons, trampling all who got in their way. Lotor knows the paladins still think he's playing them. (He supposes, in a sense, he is. He refuses to trust again. He refuses to get attached. If it came to it, he would discard the paladins in a heartbeat. He knows this about himself. It's not something he's proud of.)

So it doesn't surprise him when Allura refuses to risk her paladins on his bid for the throne.

Neither does it surprise him when Shiro comes to him alone, a challenge in his eyes and a devil-may-care smile on his lips.

"Your princess made her opinion on this matter quite clear," Lotor says, his own smile growing as Shiro leads the way to the Black Lion.

Shiro looks at him, one eyebrow arched. "She's not my princess. I respect her, and I respect her judgment, but she does not command me."

They go.

It feels right, standing at his shoulder, staring down at a crowd of Galra.

Very little in his life has felt right--only Acxa.

When all is said and done, Lotor has the palace draped in new banners that bear the symbol of the old alliance, and it's only in part a show of goodwill to the princess.

Mostly he just wants to see Shiro's face.

Shiro stops when he sees them, stares. Then he turns, meets Lotor's eyes, and smiles, and Lotor feels the thrill of triumph resound in his bones.

* * *

Oriande is an unmitigated disaster.

Oriande--the end of an aeons-long quest. Oriande, the heritage owed him by his Altean blood, with all its secrets and all its power. After everything he faced, everything he sacrificed...

He doesn't remember the test well; it's all a blur of adrenaline, another in a long line of assassination attempts he reacts to on instinct. The white lion bears down on him with fangs bared, and he defends himself--of course he does. He didn't come so far just to die, and he has no intention of surrendering before he claims his prize.

And yet.

And yet it isn't good enough for the spirit of Oriande. It deems him unworthy, spits him out like a bit of spoiled meat.

He tries to be happy for Allura when she returns victorious, aglow with the power of Oriande, but it's a bitter pill to swallow.

* * *

The castle is quiet when they return. Shiro stands with Lance a short distance removed from the others, his head bowed. He meets Lotor's eyes only once, his expression unreadable.

Then he looks away, and ice fills Lotor's veins.

"Congratulations, Princess," he says in what Lotor would almost call deference if such a thing weren't so antithetical to the Shiro Lotor knows. "I'm glad for you." He pauses, looks to Lance, who leans his shoulder against Shiro's and nods. Shiro breathes in. "I know we have a lot to do to get the castle back online, but as soon as we're in the clear, we need to talk--all of us. I'd like Keith and Matt to be here, too, if they'll come."

"They'll come," Lance says. There's no room for doubt in his voice.

He's the only one who seems to know what this is about. The others all stare at Shiro, concern and confusion written in their posture. And Lotor--

Lotor feels the familiar creep of dread running down his spine as Shiro turns and walks off the bridge without another word.

(That night for the first time, when Lotor writes to ask if he should be worried, Shiro doesn't respond.)

* * *

As it happens, Lance is right. Matthew Holt drops everything when he gets the call, arriving on the castle-ship the very same evening. Keith is slower, but not by much. He arrives fresh from a mission, soot on his face and a Blade named Krolia following behind.

Lotor skips the welcome parties, opting instead to wait on the bridge, his nerves winding tighter with each paladin to join him in his vigil. Matt and Keith find each other quickly, in what Lotor supposes is solidarity for shared hurt. (No one has said outright that something went wrong with Shiro's other bonds, but these humans do talk, and Lotor is good at reading between the lines.)

Looking at them now, his soulmate's other soulmates, Lotor feels queasy. Something isn't right here, and he catches himself checking his sword twice as the wait drags on.

Shiro is the last to arrive, and Lance abandons his efforts to entice Keith into a conversation at once. Hurt flashes across Keith's face, followed by anger, and he puts his back to the pair by the door.

Lotor, in contrast, can't take his eyes off them. Lance whispers in frantic tones, and Shiro responds with monosyllabic answers, offering a thin smile before he steps forward.

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting," he says. "Keith, Matt... Thanks for coming. I know this isn't easy."

Matt's lips quirk into a smile. "Life isn't easy, Takashi. We're still your soulmates."

Shiro's smile fades. "That's... That's actually why I called you here." He closes his eyes as Keith straightens up, his face betraying hope he likely doesn't mean to show. "There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to cut to the chase... I'm... not Shiro."

Deathly silence follows this proclamation. Keith drops his arms to his side. Allura takes a single step forward. Faltering questions break the silence, but Lotor's mind is already racing ahead. Even as Shiro--Ryou, he asks them to call him--explains his reasoning, even as Lance steps forward to show his Marks as proof and assures the team that Ryou knew no more about the switch than any of them--Lotor is already slotting pieces into place.

A clone. It's the only logical conclusion, and the same one Ryou and Lance have arrived at. It unsettles the paladins, but not as much as it should. Lotor's blood turns to ice, and his hand shakes as he reaches for the sword at his side. Because he knows.

To make a clone of this quality, with the memories of the original intact, is no mean feat of science. Only Haggar has such deft control over memories, and anything she built is sure to serve her in more ways than the obvious.

He begins searching back at once, his body moving of its own accord as waves of hot and cold sweep through him. Were there any signs? Any indication that Haggar had more information than she should have? Anything out of the ordinary that might have aroused his suspicion? He can't think of anything, but everything has been such a rush since he came to the castle. He can't be sure, and the uncertainty ignites a fire in his veins.

He doesn't register drawing his sword until its familiar weight is in his hands. The other paladins cry out, several of them summoning their own weapons, but Lotor pays them no mind. He tastes Haggar's magic in the air; he sees her watching him from behind Ryou's eyes, just as she watched him through Narti, just as she's been watching him at every turn for millennia.

He charges, a howling in his ears.

Lance steps between Lotor and Ryou, a sword falling into his hand. The clash radiates up Lotor's arm into a dislocated shoulder that's long since healed, and Lotor reels back, his vision swimming as he looks around the room. Keith has drawn his Blade, though he waits a few steps back. Allura and Pidge both have bayard in hand, inactive as of yet.

The way they're arrayed, it's clear which side of this confrontation they've chosen.

"Take a walk, Lotor," Lance growls. "Before you do something you regret." His grip on his sword is unpracticed, and Lotor knows he could disarm him in an instant, but his stance is wide, his jaw set, and he has numbers on his side. He will not stand down, and if Lotor presses this, he knows how it will end.

His heart pounds in his chest. His skin prickles with the gazes of half a dozen enemies, each waiting for the right moment to strike. He looks around, a voice in the darkest corner of his mind telling him that he was right all along. He was right not to trust. He was right not to get attached.

His eyes find Ryou's.

He doesn't see Narti anymore. He sees Acxa, her hurt yielding to resignation. Like Acxa, Ryou's not angry. Like Narti, he doesn't fight back. He just stands there, watching. Waiting for the end.

Waiting to die on his soulmate's sword.

(He wonders if Alfor was the same, at the end.)

A bitter laugh falls from Lotor's lips, and his sword falls from his hand. It strikes the ground with a clatter that makes Ryou flinch. Lotor turns away, staring at the door as he walks away. From a fight he cannot win. From a trap he never saw coming.

From his soulmate--a cosmic hoax so elaborate that even Lotor believed the lie.


	3. Ryou

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, well, uh. Turns out this story isn't done with me yet. There's at least a chapter and an epilogue left after this one. My original plan was to finish before season 6 dropped, but no promises there. This week has been.... chaotic. Anyway, enjoy!

The silence after Lotor leaves is a long one, and no one seems to want to break it.

Ryou stares at the door, ice creeping through his veins. He feels cold all over, his skin prickling with a chill that leaves him breathless and shivering. The castle isn't quite back to normal after losing power, he tells himself, and the shock of having his life threatened doesn't help. Still, for a moment it's like he's back in a desolate icy wasteland, alone and confused.

He can't look Keith or Matt in the eyes. He's afraid of what he'll find there, though they've made no move to attack him and in fact joined the defensive line beside Lance. (He knows better than to assume that means they've accepted him. It's just that they're practical enough not to kill the only one who might be able to point them towards the real Shiro.)

(He can't fault them for that.)

Slowly, slowly, the room begins to breathe again, and Lance hisses an insult under his breath, though Lotor is much too far by now to hear it. He turns, bayard evaporating in a flash, and grabs Ryou by the shoulder.

"He'll come around," he says. He sounds unsure of himself, and Ryou stares him dead in the eye. Lance purses his lips. "Maybe he won't. But if he doesn't, screw him. The rest of us know you better than him, anyway."

Do they, though? It seems to Ryou that Lance is letting his opinion of Shiro color his perception of Ryou. He wants to believe that the man they've been living with is as good as the man he pretended to be, but how can any of them be sure? At least Lotor is judging based on facts:

Ryou is a clone.

A clone built by Haggar and sent to infiltrate Voltron.

If Ryou himself doesn't know who he is, how can anyone else?

* * *

He doesn't see Lotor that night.

He doesn't expect to, but it still leaves a weight on his chest that makes it hard to breathe, even after the team's questions have all run dry. Keith and Matt have already begun pushing for a search, and Pidge needs little prompting to lend a hacker's talents. Hunk lets himself be swept up in the flurry of activity, too. Allura and Coran have started reaching out to allies, putting the word out in case someone--anyone--knows something.

None of them look at Ryou. He's already told them that he doesn't know anything useful.

He...

He doesn't think he knows anything useful.

He thinks he _should_ , but it's so hard to make himself think about his time in Galra custody. He shies away from it, stomach churning over things he can't remember.

His head hurts.

So he leaves.

He goes back to his room--Shiro's room--but stops at the door, his skin crawling. He's stolen a man's life. Stolen his place in the universe, stolen his friends and his lion. To continue to sleep here now that he knows feels like spitting on the man's grave.

Ryou turns, not lingering long enough to even grab a pillow or a change of clothes, and heads for the empty rooms further down the hall.

* * *

He doesn't sleep that night.

The room smells like dust and stale air. The bedding is even worse. Ryou lies down at first, trying to convince himself to sleep, but ends up ripping off the sheets and stuffing them down the laundry chute.

He's still there, sitting on the edge of a bare mattress, when Lance finds him an hour later.

"So this is where you ran off to. I tried knocking on your door, but you didn't answer. Thought you might have gone to see Black or something."

He's looking around the room--bare walls, bare mattress, bare table and desk. It's an exact replica of Shiro's room, but completely devoid of personality. (The parallels are a bit too on-the-nose for Ryou to find them funny, but he can't deny the irony.)

"I'm not Shiro," Ryou points out.

Lance stares at him. "...I know?"

Ryou closes his eyes, his chest twinging. "I don't think you do. It's not my room; it's Shiro's. And Black isn't my lion, either. I may have acted like I was him before, but I'm not going to keep doing it now."

Lance wraps his arms around his stomach, but ventures deeper into the room and takes a seat on the bed beside Ryou. "I know you're not him. I'm not expecting you to be. And... okay, I get where you're coming from with the room thing. Not like the two of you can share it. But it's not like he's here to use it _now_."

"It doesn't--"

"And Black did choose you," Lance goes on, overriding Ryou's protest. "Whoever you are, wherever you came from--she chose you. Haggar couldn't fake that."

"Are you sure?" Ryou demands. "Are you absolutely sure? She cloned one of your best friends, down to the Quintessence--I can still open all his locks, you know, even the biometric ones. And she shoved his memories into me. Are you absolutely sure she can't fake a bond?"

Lance goes still, which is how Ryou knows he caught his meaning.

Everything about Ryou was created in a lab, designed by Haggar to give her the perfect spy.

Who's to say she didn't craft the soulbonds, too? Drive the team apart by replacing Keith's bond with a new one with Lance. Keep Matt and the rebels at arm's length while worming beneath Lotor's defenses.

Nothing about any of this feels real, and Ryou almost hopes Lance walks out right now. Leaves him alone. Strips away the last bit of hope he has to his name.

At least if he hits rock bottom he'll have something solid to stand on.

But Lance doesn't go. He stares at his hands, swallowing several times as Ryou's words hang in the air between them. Lance rubs at his Marks. Little splotches of color that correspond to the others's scars, though most of them don't bear Lance's Marks.

"No."

Ryou almost misses the word, it's so soft. He turns, watching Lance and waiting for him to continue.

He does after a moment, his voice stronger this time. "I don't care what Haggar did or didn't do. She doesn't get to decide my soulbonds for me. Even if she linked us somehow--even _if_ \--I don't care. I know who my soulmates are, and you're one of them."

Tears spring to Ryou's eyes, and he has to turn away before Lance sees his cracks.

(He's not fast enough. Lance reaches out to rest a hand on his shoulder. He doesn't say anything more, but he doesn't have to. He's still here.)

(After everything, he's still here.)

* * *

He doesn't see Lotor for two days, except once, when he catches a flicker of black coattails heading out the other door.

Ryou doesn't go looking for him. Doesn't try writing to him, either. He wants to more than once, if only to say he understands. They're all trying to figure out how deep Haggar's influence goes, and Ryou, for one, can't stop thinking about how much he's been putting his team at risk just by being here.

Shiro's team.

He has to keep reminding himself of that. They're not his team, even if they've all banded together with Lance to adamantly defend Ryou's right to stay on the castle-ship. It's not his fault he is what he is. Haggar's the one who made him. But he does still carry a threat with him wherever he goes. He can't blame anyone for wanting to eliminate that threat.

Sometimes, he wants to do it for them.

But he can't give up yet, no matter how hard it is to look the others in the eye. He's not sure if any of them really trust him, but Lance does, and that seems to be enough.

So he stays.

He has to. At least until they find Shiro.

* * *

"You're sure you don't know anything?" Keith asks, on more than one occasion. "Anything at all?"

Ryou just shakes his head, straining for patience as he tells his story for the third time. He has all of Shiro's memories--or, maybe not all of them, but enough not to notice the gaps--up through the battle with Zarkon. After that: pain, muddled voices, bright lights shining in his eyes. Half of his memories feel more like dreams, but he recounts them anyway, because he passed off the vision of another him as a dream, too, before he broke through the mental block that kept him from considering the possibility that he was cloned. That he _is_ a clone.

The only useful thing they can pluck out of his memories is the name of the research effort, Operation Kuron. Pidge dives into the files in search of it, and Matt returns to the rebels to start tapping their contacts, and Keith passes the word along to Kolivan, though he doesn't leave. There's nowhere for him to go yet. Not until someone turns up a lead.

He's frustrated by the lack of information, Ryou can tell. No surprise there; everyone's frustrated, Ryou included. He can't help but wonder whether he knew something more, at one point. After all, Haggar's already proved she can implant false memories; why couldn't she remove ones that would be inconvenient for her puppet to recall?

Ryou's chest tightens whenever he thinks about Haggar meddling in his head, and he wants to ask the others to look for a way to fix it, but he knows the search for Shiro comes first. They've put stop-gaps in place for now, which mostly boils down to Keith returning to the Black Lion and Ryou getting shut out of any conversation that dives too deep into things they can't risk Haggar finding out about.

(It's fine. Ryou understands.)

He tries not to think about it, and for the most part, he succeeds.

It's surprisingly easy not to think about Haggar's schemes.

* * *

The castle-ship has never been so quiet. Ryou's presence--and by extension, Shiro's conspicuous absence--puts a damper on every conversation. Ryou can feel it whenever he enters a room. The way voices falter as people try not to stare at him, and then the conversation picks up again, always with a slightly different bent than before. (Some people are good at covering these slips. Coran and Matt and Allura hardly miss a beat as they steer the conversation toward safe topics. Pidge and Hunk are less graceful, and Keith doesn't even try.)

But it's not just that. Usual activity on the castle has come to a screeching halt. No one uses the training deck any more, except for Keith and his mother. (His _mother._  Ryou is glad for Keith, really he is, but he can't stand to be in the same room as Krolia, who always seems to be judging him. It doesn't help that he knows how much Shiro would want to get to know her, to fold Keith's family into the one they've built here on the castle-ship.)

Hunk, Pidge, and Matt rarely leave the Green Lion's hangar, except when Coran comes to drag them to dinner or bully them into sleeping for a few hours. Allura takes over all the essential duties of the Coalition, and Coran maintains the castle as best he can between trying to maintain the paladins. Lance does his best to keep them all from falling apart, but he's fighting a losing battle and he knows it.

Lotor returns to his flagship to run the Empire, curtly promising to send whatever aid he can spare for the rescue of the true black paladin.

He stares right at Ryou when he says this. It's the only time Lotor has looked at him since the truth came out.

* * *

"So what's it like?" Pidge asks one day over dinner. Keith has already come and gone, and Matt is scribbling on his arm under the table, as though something might have changed wherever Shiro is. As though he might suddenly begin to write again after months of silence.

Or maybe Matt thinks Shiro has always been reading and just hasn't had a way to respond. That was Matt's life for so long, and Ryou remembers--

Well.

He remembers how Shiro used to write to Matt every day without fail. Little bursts of encouragement, of love. Lifelines to keep Matt afloat wherever he was. Promises that they'd find each other again.

"What's what like?" Ryou asks. His voice is hoarse these days; he doesn't use it much, except when one of the others decides to interrogate him again.

He doesn't blame them for it. This is a castle full of people who fixate on problems until they find the answer, and Shiro's life is higher stakes than anything else they've run across.

"Being a clone." Pidge waves a fork in the air, ignoring the way everyone else in the room stiffens.

Truthfully, Ryou appreciates the frankness. All this tiptoeing around the issue has left him feeling uneasy, like he has an axe over his head just waiting to fall.

He shrugs. "I don't know how to answer that. What's it like to not be a clone?"

Pidge shoves the spoon into her mouth and hums. "Fair enough. I should have been more specific." She pauses, sucking on the spoon as she considers her next question. "Do you remember anything from before they implanted Shiro's memories into you?"

" _Pidge_ ," Allura hisses, giving Ryou a wild-eyed stare.

Ryou can give no answer but to stare back at Pidge, his thoughts stuttering as he tries to think back. Back to vats full of viscous liquid. Back to bright lights and garbled voices. Pidge seems to realize what she asked, and she drops her spoon, frantically backpedaling as Lance shifts a few inches closer to Ryou.

"New question," Lance says casually, leaning his elbows on the table. "You ever do something because Shiro likes doing it, when it turns out that's not something you like?"

Ryou slowly shifts his gaze to Lance. This is an easier question. Less painful. It doesn't tighten his chest the way thoughts of the labs do. But his head is still spinning, a headache pulsing at his temples, and it's so hard to focus on Lance's words. He finds the question slipping from his mind, and when he tries to chase it, he only makes himself dizzy.

The table lapses into silence.

No one tries to ask Ryou about the experience of being a clone again.

And by the time dinner is over, Ryou has forgotten all about it.

* * *

It's almost a week before they find their first lead: a brief mention deep in some correspondence Krolia digs up from the Blade archives. It's not a location, and it's not an answer to the question of where Shiro went, but it gives them names--two officers who were involved with Operation Kuron.

Pidge finds the coordinates where those officers are stationed now, and Keith and Matt leave within the hour to see what they can dig up.

* * *

Ryou is in the room by chance when Lotor next calls. There's a moment of horrible silence as their eyes lock, and it strikes Ryou that he hasn't said a word to Lotor since that day.

It's Lotor who breaks the stalemate, turning his eyes to Allura. "Princess Allura," he says with all the formality a newly-crowned Emperor can muster. "I thank you for your time, but I fear mine is short. Would it be possible for us to speak privately?"

Ryou doesn't wait for Allura to send him away (as she must, since they still can't be sure Haggar isn't watching through him.) Nor does he wait for her to apologize (as she always does, as _everyone_ always does, with the lone exception of Keith.)

He doesn't want their pity.

And he couldn't face Lotor's disdain, regardless.

(He tells himself he understands, but it's getting harder to be gracious about bearing everyone's suspicion and pity at the same time.)

* * *

Keith and Matt turn up nothing concrete. Krolia pulls records while Keith distracts his target, but the records have already been scrubbed clean, and Matt's target sacrifices her ship rather than risk the rebels getting anything worthwhile.

It means that Operation Kuron is every bit as important as they suspected.

(Ryou doesn't think he's supposed to know how these missions went, but it's pitifully easy to figure it out. After all, they know better than to trust him. Why come to him with more questions if they had any safer option?)

* * *

"What do you remember?" they ask him. "What can you tell us about Operation Kuron?"

(They each have their own way of asking, Lance by working up to it, Allura directly but not unkindly, Pidge alternating probing questions and sheepish apologies, Hunk bottling it all up until he can't help but to ask the things that no one else has worked up the courage for.)

Somehow it's easiest when it's Keith who's leading the interrogation, as he does more and more often now. He's flying Black again, which makes him the leader--in the team's eyes, if not in his own. Ryou sees how the pressure grinds at him, how he hides his uncertainty behind cutting comments and snappish commands. He wishes he could ease that burden somehow, but whoever Keith might listen to right now, it's not his missing soulmate's clone.

"You have to remember something." Keith's voice is sharp, but Ryou still has Shiro's memories. He knows that it's the stress of his station and worry for Shiro that puts the edge in the words, not any particular dislike for Ryou. Keith is short with everyone these days. Ryou doesn't take it personally.

"I wish I did," Ryou says. "I keep wracking my brain, but if I ever knew anything about their plans, it's just not there anymore."

"Well think harder!"

Lance pulls Keith away then, and Ryou sees himself out while they talk in low voices across the room.

And Ryou tries. He does. He searches back through his early, fragmented memories, through nonsensical dreams and fleeting moments of deja vu that might point to something important.

But thinking of the labs turns to memories of his escape, and by the time he reaches his room, he's wondering what ever became of the rebels who captured him and gave him their ship. He should talk to Matt about it...

(It's frighteningly easy to drift away from the answers he seeks, the unpleasant questions rotting to dust in the shadows of his mind.)

* * *

"How did you not know?"

The question doesn't surprise him. Nor does the fact that it's Matt who asks, cringing and apologetic, like he's the one who's been caught in a lie rather than Ryou. In fact, only two things about this conversation surprise Ryou: First, that it's taken nearly two weeks to get here.

Second, that it's not an accusation.

"He's not lying," Lance says, ready as always to jump to Ryou's defense, though he rarely needs to. That first disaster with Lotor must have really spooked him.

Matt, though, only holds up his hands. "No, I know. That's not what I'm saying. I mean, literally, what kept him from realizing the truth? The proof was there. The gap in his memories, the fact that Black didn't recognize him, the way our soulbonds didn't work... There must have been other things that didn't add up, too. Things the rest of us couldn't see."

(Other things, like the fact that Shiro's marks have always been black, but Ryou's mark on Lotor's skin was pure white, and that didn't _mean_ anything to Ryou until Lance laid the truth out for him.)

"I don't know," Matt says. "It just seems like you should have figured it out sooner, and the fact that you _didn't_ makes me wonder if that was more of Haggar messing with your head."

Ryou's skin crawls, and his mind automatically turns toward less horrifying thoughts. It's a familiar sensation, this easy slide away from questions that really deserve to be asked, and he knows this isn't the first time it's happened, though he can't recall what else he's shied away from. What he doesn't know is if this is a natural response to trauma, hiding the unsightly wounds away until he's ready to deal with them--the same way Shiro lost so many memories after escaping the first time.

Or is it something more sinister?

He fights to follow those worries to an answer, whatever that answer may be, but the more he contemplates someone like Haggar actively, continuously messing with his thoughts, the more the shadows of existential dread close in around him, until finally he gives up and nudges the conversation along to the upgrades Coran's been working on down in the shield generator.

* * *

Lotor can't ignore Voltron forever. The other Galra are reluctant to accept his rule, to say the least. Splinter groups have sprung up all across the Empire, their leaders challenging Lotor's throne. Haggar and Sendak are foremost among these factions, of course, but there are others. Far too many others.

Lotor needs Voltron. The clone aside, they're the only true allies he has left.

(He hopes the rest are all still honest with their intentions. He hopes Allura isn't lying when she says they still mean to help him.)

He returns to the Castle of Lions with a small honor guard who bar Shiro's clone from entering the room where Lotor and the paladins are to meet. There's a murmur among the others, but none of them speak up in the clone's favor.

Lance, though, goes rigid. Hunk reaches out for him, but Lance just shakes him off, not once breaking eye contact with Lotor.

Without a word, he turns and leaves the room, joining the clone in the hallway outside.

Lotor fights against a swell of anger as he remembers, again, that these people--people he'd almost begun to consider friends--have sided with the clone over Lotor. It shouldn't surprise him, but it does, and that makes him all the more angry. Is this the fate of someone who has far outlived his allotted time? To live long enough to watch everyone betray him? He understood it coming from Acxa. He's thrown up walls to dull the sting of looking at the man he thought was his soulmate.

He didn't realize how much he cared what the other paladins thought of him.

"Lotor..." Allura's voice is diplomatic, easing into a topic she knows is a minefield. "I understand you're worried about the hand Haggar has in all this, but I assure you, we've already put safeguards in place to ensure no vital information gets back to her."

"No vital information that she doesn't already know," Lotor says.

Allura presses her lips together, and Lotor gets the sense that she's disappointed in him. "Ryou is not at fault here. He had no knowledge of what Haggar did to him or to Shiro, and he's trying to set things right as much as he can. There's no need to treat him like the enemy."

Lotor scoffs, but arguing with Allura on this point is futile. She can't possibly understand. Not unless Lotor bares his soul to her and tells her everything about his soulbonds--his others in addition to this one he has with the clone.

The one he appears to have with the clone.

If only he could be sure. If only there was someway to prove, definitively, whether their bond was genuine or if it was created in a lab. Created by Haggar to manipulate Lotor. To--to--

To what? What purpose could she possibly have for creating a false soulmate for him? How does that benefit her, beyond a petty strike where Lotor least expected it? It's not like the clone ever tried to kill him; quite the opposite. Perhaps he was meant to distract? Or simply to spy.

That seems the most likely, he thinks. He doubts she has any control over his actions--she wouldn't have given Lotor the bayard if she'd had control.

(Unless she expected Zarkon to win that duel, and Lotor was merely a means by which to return the black bayard to Zarkon's control.)

She certainly didn't want Lotor showing up to the Kral Zera to claim the throne.

(Unless... Unless she knew the Empire wouldn't rally behind her and her puppet without a compelling reason. Zarkon's half-breed son taking charge and burning down all his father built might just be what Haggar needs to consolidate power. It seems to be working so far.)

He just want to _know_.

He wants to know, but he needs to put romantic fancies aside and face the truth of the universe.

He is alone, and he can trust none but himself.

* * *

He leaves the paladins to police the universe.

If there's one thing he can count on, it's that Voltron has a vested interest in putting an end to the rampage of warlords and slighted generals trying to stake their claim in the Empire. Lotor sends what troops he can to support them, but his control over the fleet is questionable at best. He expects a betrayal at any moment, and all seem equally likely to perpetrate it.

He needs to change tactics.

Leave the fighting to Voltron.

Leave the posturing to Sendak.

Lotor has an ace up his sleeve: Quintessence. Endless Quintessence. With the Empire's resources at his command and Voltron itself an uneasy ally, the rift is within reach now more than ever. And once he opens it, once he grants his subjects unlimited energy, that's it. It's the scarcity of Quintessence that fuels conflicts between generals. It's the druids' Quintessence production plants and Haggar's ability to siphon Quintessence from planets and living beings that forms the foundation of her power.

If he takes that away, he places her on even footing with any other general.

And he places himself a step above the rest.

(He leaves mere hours after his meeting with the paladins. His armada has its orders; Voltron has always and will continue to direct itself. Lotor has his own mission, and it's one he intends to see to personally.)

* * *

It's Kolivan who finds him.

Rather, it's a Blade operative who finds him, but it's Kolivan who passes the news along.

Ryou isn't in the room when Kolivan calls; it's only much later that he hears the story.

Following one of Pidge's hypotheses, the operative turned their attention toward the smaller prisons, forgotten at the edges of the Empire, and looked for prisoners captured in the week before Ryou's "escape" from Operation Kuron. (The timing would explain the two-month gap between Shiro's disappearance and Ryou's arrival--not long enough by half to perfect a clone, and yet if they'd been ready before then, why wait? Why bring more scrutiny down on her pawn? Unless they'd delayed until they had Shiro in their custody and could be sure he wouldn't return and reveal Haggar's trickery.)

Keith and Matt are both away following a different lead, but Kolivan includes them in the call, and they pull out at once, changing course to go find Shiro. The other paladins waste no more time, sprinting for their lions as Allura and Coran prep the wormhole.

Someone has obviously told the paladins not to fill Ryou in on what they've learned. He passes Hunk in the corridor during that initial scramble, and Hunk freezes, nearly dropping his helmet. Ryou's heart clenches--armor means battle, and lately Voltron has dropped all but the most pressing of calls. If this isn't Shiro, then it's a disaster of another sort, and either way the pressing need to help steals Ryou's breath.

He holds himself back from asking for details, though. He doubts he would get any, and he doesn't want to put Hunk in that position. They both know they can't risk this. Not if Shiro's life is on the line. No one knows how much power Haggar has within the Empire right now, but if she can get to Shiro, and if she knows the paladins are coming...

Ryou steps back, averts his gaze, and Hunk hurries on. Ryou tries not to let it sting.

* * *

It's Lance who broaches the subject, Ryou later learns. The paladins are all in their lions. Allura has already opened a wormhole that brings Keith and Matt and the Black Lion back to the castle-ship so they can all strike at once. The wormhole that will take them to Shiro's prison is primed, and Allura is on her way down to Blue. They're waiting only for Keith to give the word.

And Lance asks if they should bring Ryou.

"He has a stake in this, too," Lance points out. "And even if Haggar's watching, it's too late for her to do anything now. Anything she won't do anyway as soon as we come through that wormhole."

To hear Matt tell it, an expectant silence falls over the team at Lance's words. They all have their private issues with the situation, but they all agree that Ryou is fundamentally trustworthy.

But this is Keith's call--Keith, who is Shiro's soulmate, who is the acting leader of the paladins, who has more experience than any of them circumventing Galra security, who has the most tenuous relationship with Ryou of any of them and so would be the one to shut him out if there were any cause for hesitation.

But Keith trusts Lance with his life, and Lance trusts Ryou just as much.

"Okay," Keith says, his eyes locked with Lance's. "Once we're through the wormhole, tell him what's happening. The rest of us will launch ahead of you so Haggar doesn't have a chance to try anything. Get in there as fast as you can--I have a feeling we're going to need the backup."

* * *

Ryou's hands shake as the prison comes into view.

It's a small, unremarkable facility on the surface of a quiet moon. No signs from out here that it houses a paladin of Voltron. No extra security that Ryou can see, though the Yellow and Green Lions are dealing with a small force in the air. Black and Blue have already landed, and Lance brings Red down to join them.

Ryou squeezes his shoulder as they land, trying to communicate the storm that's left him speechless since he heard what's going on. "Thank you," he says.

Lance only smiles. "You don't need to thank me. We all just want to get Shiro back."

* * *

Security is as light inside as it is outside: not non-existant, but not what it should be for a prisoner of Shiro's caliber. Ryou's heart is pounding as he and Lance delve deeper into the prison, following the trail of carnage Keith, Matt, and Allura have left behind.

Is the intel wrong?

Is this a trap?

The empty hallways and the first brief skirmish bring to mind his own escape, months ago now, and one piece of his mind sticks inside the memory while another tries to slide it quietly out of sight, and he only realizes he's been standing over the fallen soldier for thirty seconds when Lance gently calls his name.

It's probably not the first time.

"I'm fine," Ryou says, and as long as Shiro's here, it will be true.

* * *

The others are fighting a guard squad at a T-shaped intersection when Ryou and Lance catch up to them. The guards have the advantage--better cover, better vantage points, and ranged weapons to harry the intruders as they try to cut through the line of sentries acting as an advance guard.

Lance hangs back, lining up shots on the gunmen he can see from his position, while Ryou dives into the fray.

The odds aren't good, he knows, but he's faced worse.

 _Shiro_ has faced worse.

But Ryou has all of that programed into him, even the muscle memory that keeps the worst of the blows from landing as he dances among the sentries, clearing the path so the others can swarm the gunmen.

Ryou can't avoid every hit, but he's so wholly focused on getting to Shiro that he doesn't even notice the lasers that occasionally slip through the thin Altean battle suit he wears in lieu of Shiro's armor. Doesn't notice them except that Lance sometimes lets out a hiss of pain that makes Ryou's stomach clench with guilt.

The last of the guards go down quickly once the sentry line is broken, and Keith sprints ahead, Blade in one hand, bayard in the other. He looks ready to behead anyone else who stands in his way, and Ryou doesn't envy the guards stationed here.

Matt stays close to Keith, the same steel hardening his face, and Ryou stays close to them both, because Shiro would never forgive him if either of them got hurt.

(Ryou would never forgive himself, either, but he thinks that comes mostly from Shiro's memories, and to say that he cares for Shiro's soulmates feels dishonest when that love was stuffed into his head by Haggar's witchcraft.)

He stays close, anyway.

He'll justify it later if it comes to that.

* * *

When they at last find Shiro, it all makes sense.

The minimal security, considering Shiro's reputation within the Empire. The fact that neither Keith nor Matt saw or felt anything from Shiro in the last five months.

They've passed a few prisoners in cells during their search, and now that Pidge and Hunk are done clearing out the aerial forces, they've begun to shuttle these prisoners to the castle-ship.

But Shiro isn't in a cell.

They have him suspended in a fluid-filled glass cylinder like the ones that haunt Ryou's patchy memories.

(He thinks he should know how that kind of containment works, but it slips away from him. More important things to worry about now, anyway.)

Matt finds the controls at once and begins to search for the release while Lance holds Keith back from simply smashing the glass. Ryou stands at the back of the group, numb. He counts it a blessing that Shiro at least hasn't suffered during his second captivity. There will be no wounds that might have transferred to Keith. He probably hasn't been awake at all; he knows too well how to wound for them to have trusted him not to contact Keith even if they didn't do it for him.

Except.

There's one new scar that catches Ryou's eye, beneath the familiar purple rags of a prisoner. A little pale line poking out from his sleeve. Entranced, Ryou inches closer, paying no mind to the warning Keith gives.

Ryou stops with his fingertips resting on the glass. His left hand beside Shiro's.

It's not a scar.

It's a Mark.

Ryou has a scar in just the same spot--a faint, slightly puckered patch of skin the cryopods couldn't entirely smooth out. When he'd been captured by the rebels and hung by his wrists, the cuff had rubbed him raw, especially at the base of his thumb. He suspects it got infected, but the week that followed his escape is still a haze, and he's not sure how much he can trust his memories.

Still--it's a perfect match for Shiro's Mark.

It's--

He can't process it.

He can't figure out what it means.

Lance doesn't have Marks for all of Ryou's scars. He doesn't have _this_ Mark. They only started showing up for him after Ryou arrived on the castle-ship. (Coran has theorized that Ryou's nature made his bonds more fluid in the early days. Ryou always wondered if it was somehow part of Haggar's plan. Did she know about Lance's atypical bond with Shiro? Did she know that the Marks would give Ryou away, and so delayed the bond until Lance had seen that "Shiro's" other bonds had been affected, too?)

Or was it just that the bonds took time to develop? Ryou can't count the number of times he's tried to think back to when Lotor's Mark first appeared on his skin. He's almost positive it wasn't there when he arrived on the castle-ship. Someone else would have noticed it, at the very least. Wouldn't they have?

But if that's true--and if Shiro has this Mark--that would mean their bond formed much earlier than any of Ryou's other soulbonds.

An artifact of the cloning process?

Or something more?

"Is everything okay?"

Matt's voice is hesitant, and Ryou only then remembers that he's not alone in the room. Keith and Lance have come up beside him, Lance still holding Keith by the wrist but now also reaching out to Ryou.

"Fine," Ryou says, jerking away from the glass.. "I just-- He has my Marks."

Silence.

Lance's eyes are wide, but there's no pity in them. If anything, pride. Allura and Matt seem similarly shocked, but they smile in a way that says they aren't offended by this curveball.

(Keith's face is unreadable, but he does relax a little, and Ryou wonders if he's been afraid all this time that Ryou meant Shiro harm.)

"I think I've got it," Matt says, when it becomes clear that no one knows what to say to Ryou's bond with Shiro. "Get ready to catch him."

Everything in Ryou wants to step forward to catch Shiro as the liquid drains, the glass retracts, and he begins to fall. But he holds back, letting Keith catch him instead. Matt and Allura move quickly to join him--Allura ultimately picking him up once it becomes clear that he's not waking up any time soon. (Sedatives, Ryou thinks. He doesn't follow the thought back to its root.)

Lance stays with Ryou through it all, like he knows that Ryou himself feels like he's just been decanted and is struggling to support himself on legs that don't remember how to stand.

* * *

They get Shiro out without any more problems. Allura carries him to the Blue Lion, and with only a brief moment of hesitation, Keith tells Ryou to take the Black Lion so he and Matt can go with Allura.

Ryou's not sure if it's a sign of trust or exactly the opposite. _I trust you with one of the universe's greatest weapons,_ or _I don't trust you with our soulmate?_ (It sounds so strange to call him that.) Keith must know that's what Ryou had planned--to ride with Allura and watch over Shiro.

Or... maybe not. Keith's never been the best at reading people, and he's not the passive-aggressive type anyway. If he doesn't like you, he'll either tell you flat-out or he'll simply refuse to engage. Ryou knows that much from Shiro's memories.

He's probably reading too much into this.

Keith is worried about Shiro, and Ryou's the only other person who can fly the Black Lion.

It's a purely practical solution.

So Ryou just nods and changes course, his pulse thundering in his ears as he approaches Black. It hasn't been long enough for him to forget how it felt when he first came to the castle and she refused to acknowledge him. He doesn't blame her for it, now that he knows why she did, but the shame and the hurt are primed already.

"I know I'm not him," Ryou says--the first words he's spoken to Black since the truth came out. "But you let me fly you before, when the team needed it. And Keith needs to be with Shiro right now."

Black rumbles an invitation, and Ryou enters her cockpit. Where he expects to find walls up and a chasm opened between them, he instead finds only a fond exasperation as though Black is saying, _It took you long enough._

He feels foolish, but his steps are lighter as he crosses the cockpit and takes a seat. The Red Lion lingers on the ground nearby, and Ryou imagines that Lance, too, wasn't sure what to expect. Ryou opens a channel to him and smiles.

Lance's taut expression softens at once. "Come on," he says. "Let's go home."

* * *

Whatever tension flying with Black drained away, it returns twofold as Ryou and Lance make their way to the infirmary, where Coran is just settling Shiro into a cryopod. They've already traded his prisoner's rags for a medsuit, which highlights the weight Shiro has lost since he disappeared.

Keith and Matt stand close together near the pod, Matt worrying a hangnail, Keith glaring at the floor. Matt turns when Ryou enters and attempts a smile.

Ryou doesn't need to ask to know what they're thinking. It was too easy. Even knowing the Galra kept Shiro sedated the entire time, even knowing they didn't have to worry about an escape attempt, they should have been prepared for a rescue--especially once Ryou figured out he's a clone. If Haggar really is watching, she should have stepped up security.

The way Ryou figures, the lack of resistance means one of three things: Haggar isn't actually monitoring Ryou, so she didn't realize her ruse had failed (possible, but perhaps too optimistic); Zarkon's death and Lotor's ascension cut Haggar's legs out from under her, and she no longer has control over the prison where Shiro was being held (unlikely, considering how remote it is and how cunning Haggar is.)

Or the Shiro they found there is another clone, and Haggar wanted them to escape with their prize.

Steeling himself for the worst, Ryou stalks into the medbay next door and roots around until he comes up with a surgical marker--not quite as discreet as pens made for writing to soulmates, but it'll do the trick. He returns to the pod room and holds the marker out to Matt, who falls silent, tucking his hands under his arms.

"Take it," Ryou says. "You're not going to sleep until you know."

Matt looks away. "I don't... I mean... It doesn't matter either way. We weren't going to leave him there, even if he's not Shiro."

"I know." Ryou uncaps the marker and holds it out again. "But you need to know. At the very least, we need to know if we should still be searching."

Matt glances to Keith, who seems to be holding himself back from grabbing the marker and checking on Matt's behalf. Then, slowly, Matt reaches out and takes the marker. He tugs off his glove with his teeth, shifts sideways so he has a good view of Shiro's left hand through the glass, and draws a thick, hasty line across the back of his hand.

A matching Mark appears on Shiro's skin in sepia at the same instant, and Matt sways on his feet.

Ryou takes the marker back while Matt clings to Keith, his breathing taking a tumble toward open sobs. Ryou returns the marker to where he found it in the other room, then continues on out the far door and retreats to his room.

There's no reason for him to intrude on this moment.

* * *

Ryou isn't there when Shiro wakes up.

He knows himself well enough to know that he should let the others explain the situation before he comes barging in. He doesn't know if Shiro encountered any other clones, that the sight of Ryou might be a trigger for him, but it seems like a stupid risk to take, especially considering how hard it is for Ryou to look at Shiro.

It's harder with Shiro in the cryopod, to be fair. Reminds Ryou too much of his own time in Operation Kuron. Shiro, hopefully, won't have to deal with that, though it's still probably for the best that they not meet anywhere that looks like a lab or operating room.

Instead, Ryou waits in the rec room, sitting on the edge of the couch with his back straight and his legs bouncing restlessly. Lance offered to wait with him, but Ryou chased him out with assurances that he would be fine. And he will be.

Shiro needs Lance more right now, anyway.

He's ready to meet Shiro, face to face--really he is. It's...

It's going to be hard. He knows that. This isn't exactly the sort of thing you can prepare for--meeting the person who was cloned to make you. There's bound to be some lingering awkwardness there. But Ryou hasn't stopped thinking about his Marks on Shiro's skin.

They're soulmates. And Ryou can't think of any reason Haggar would want to fake that.

He jumps when he feels something sharp prick his finger and stares down at the black speck that appears on his skin for a moment before vanishing--healed by the lingering magic of the cryopods or by some other Altean medical miracle. Ryou's not surprised that they wanted to test it--honestly, he's been expecting something like this, if only for Keith's peace of mind. But somehow it still surprises him that he feels it.

He supposes some part of him still expects it to be a lie.

Too soon, he hears footsteps approaching. Footsteps and voices. Pidge and Lance are the loudest, but he hears Shiro's laugh--his own laugh--and it knocks the breath out of him. He means to be standing when Shiro walks in, ready to put on a brave face for the guy who only just escaped the Galra.

Instead, he's doubled over on the couch, nearly hyperventilating, when the door hisses open.

The voices stop. So do the footsteps.

Ryou lifts his head, and the room tilts when he locks eyes with Shiro.

Ryou's never felt less real than he does in that moment.

It's Shiro who shatters the frozen moment by taking a deep breath. He's shaken, too, Ryou can tell, but he squares his shoulders and steps forward, closing the distance between them. Ryou's gaze is riveted to his face. It's magnetism. Hypnosis. It's an instinct he can't fight, and it leaves him staring up at his original, feeling pitifully small next to the man he tried, and failed, to replace.

Shiro remains standing for only a moment. Then he turns and sits beside Ryou, leaning his elbows on his knees.

"The others filled me in," Shiro says. He looks up, offering a feeble smile. "Thanks for looking out for them while I was gone."

 _Gone._ That's such a nice way of putting it, like Shiro had to run out to the store and asked Ryou to watch the kids. (Ryou has always known this about Shiro--about himself--of course. This tendency to downplay and deflect. Somehow seeing it from the outside makes it seem about as effective as a paper mask colored in with crayons.)

He relaxes, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. "I'm not sure I did all that much good while I was here, but... you're welcome? I guess? Not like I could have lived with myself if I didn't at least try to take care of them."

Shiro's shoulders curve forward, his body compacting on itself like he's trying to hide. "Sorry."

"Sorry?" Ryou echoes, dumbfounded. "What are you apologizing for?"

"For--" Shiro lifts his head, and for all he tries to cover up how lost and scared he is, Ryou sees right through him. It's a sobering moment, seeing his own face pinched like that. He wonders if that's how he looks to the others when things get bad.

He thought he was better at hiding when he was hurt.

Ryou puts a hand on Shiro's arm as he searches for the words to explain what it is he wants to apologize for.

"Doesn't matter," Ryou says firmly. "None of this is your fault."

Shiro arches an eyebrow. Something in him shifts, and he sits up a little straighter. "Fair enough," he says through a sigh. "It's not your fault, either."

A few seconds into the staring contest that ensues, Lance leans over to Pidge and stage-whispers, "Do you think having another of him around might finally get him to take care of himself?"

"Which one?" Pidge asks.

"Both."

Ryou turns to glare at Lance and feels Shiro do the same beside him.

Lance's eyes go wide, and he holds up his hands with an apologetic grin. "Woah. Double the disappointment. That's _so_ not fair."

Ryou's gaze darts sideways, and he catches Shiro looking back at him. They're silent for a moment--measuring each other, testing the air. Shiro's lips twitch, and Ryou breaks into a grin, and suddenly the tension in the air melts. Ryou laughs for what feels like the first time, and he only stops when Shiro pulls him into a hug.

"This is weird, I'm not gonna lie," Shiro says. "But I don't think it's a bad sort of weird."

It takes a moment for Ryou to convince his body to move. He's caught in the moment, afraid that a twitch of his finger will shatter it, but Shiro doesn't let go and slowly Ryou brings his arms up, locking them around Shiro's back. (He's thin, painfully so, and Ryou can feel the ridges of his spine beneath his hands, but he holds on. What's Ryou to do but reciprocate?)

Ryou still doesn't know who he is, not really, but this is something real. Something solid. He can hold onto this.


End file.
